


The Case of the Eye Drop Shooter

by amo_amare



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Case Fic, Christmas, F/F, Gen, Holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 20:03:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/626008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amo_amare/pseuds/amo_amare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sally's quiet Christmas with her girlfriend's family is spoiled when her boss winds up poisoned during a game of Scrabble. No days off when you're a cop, eh?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Case of the Eye Drop Shooter

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Sherlockmas](http://sherlockmas.livejournal.com/) 2012 holiday fic exchange. This story was inspired by Agatha Christie's novel _Cards On the Table_ , where a murder occurs during a game of bridge. Written as a gift for sherlockholmes, who prompted: _"Person A brings longtime boyfriend/girlfriend/partner/ Person B to Christmas dinner to meet their immediate and extended family. Something happens!! A robbery? A murder? a stolen Christmas gift? And the family blames Person A who must then prove their own innocence with Person B’s assistance. "_

“Molly, dear: would you be a good girl and get everyone a round of drinks?”

Molly smiled at her mother, doing her best to mask the tightness in her lips. Never mind that she was in the middle of a conversation with her Uncle Harold or that her sister and brother hadn’t lifted a single finger to help at all that day. Molly was the oldest, and as far as her mother was concerned, this was her role.

“Yes, Mum. Be right back, everyone!”

Sally followed her out of the lounge, and in the hallway leaned down to whisper in her ear: “If your mother tells you to be a ‘good girl’ one more time I’ll be tempted to drag you into the dining room, bend you backwards over the table, and show everyone just what a bad girl you can be.” She punctuated her words with a sharp pinch to Molly’s bum and a light kiss to her neck.

A squeak and a sigh answered her attentions. Molly threw a coy look over her shoulder and reached for Sally’s hand, dragging her along into the kitchen. “Let’s let everyone have a drink first, before we leave them scandalized.”

“Good idea!” Sally agreed to the suggestion with genuine enthusiasm. Once in the kitchen, she went straight for the refrigerator, opening the freezer compartment and scanning the shelves for an ice tray. “I could use a drink, mind,” she called over her shoulder. “Christmas with the girlfriend’s family _and_ the boss? Now that’s a recipe for a cocktail if I ever heard one.”

Molly frowned sympathetically. “I know: I’m sorry!” Gently, she guided her girlfriend away from the refrigerator and toward the ice chest stocked by the back door. “I hadn’t planned to invite him, you know. But it’s his first Christmas after the divorce.” She stopped her careful unpacking of a crystal punch bowl set to gesture with the silver ladle. “The ice bucket’s just there, love: fill it up, would you please?”

Kneeling in front of the ice chest, Sally sighed. “Do you think there’s anyone who knows more than I do about that bloody divorce?” Two loud whacks of a rather large chunk of ice against the side of the chest punctuated her argument.

If possible, Molly’s frown deepened. She’d begun digging through a cabinet filled with liquor bottles, pulling each one down and scrutinizing the label to avoid looking at Sally. “I’m sorry, love: you should be able to enjoy your holiday. You’d rather be at home with your own family, I imagine.”

This drew a snort of laughter from the direction of the back door. “Are you kidding me? Listening to my mum berate my step dad for buying her the wrong size slippers? Eating dried-out turkey and microwaved sweet corn? Fighting with my brothers about politics and the miserable slags they’re dating? No thank you.”

Sally crossed the room with the filled bucket of ice and plunked it down onto the counter next to Molly’s collection of bottles. She slid an arm around Molly’s slender waist, running her fingers over the silky waistband of her skirt; she lay her cheek against Molly’s stiff shoulder. Slowly, the tense muscles relaxed, and Sally smiled when she felt Molly’s cheek come to rest on the top of her head. “Nah, I think spending Christmas with you is by far my best option: no matter who else is invited.”

They stood like that for just a beat longer, Sally stroking Molly’s hip and revelling in her sighs. Then she stood up straight and gestured at the booze in front of them. “All right, now: what are we making?”

“Cranberry punch! My own special recipe.”

***

The drinks were met first with suspicion, and then with genuine pleasure.

“Oooh!” Mrs. Hooper giggled. “It’s so fizzy!”

“That’s the champagne,” Molly answered, taking a sip from her own drink.

She was sat on the plush, overstuffed sofa in front of the fireplace, sharing a blanket with Sally. Christmas dinner had been eaten, all the plates washed and put away, and it would be another hour or more before anyone would find room enough in their stomachs for dessert. For the first time that day, nothing needed doing, and Molly was free to sit and enjoy the company of her girlfriend, and her family.

And Inspector Lestrade. She thought about him with just a slight wince of guilt. While Molly had started calling Sally her girlfriend bare minutes after asking the other woman to lunch (in her head, at least) Sally had been slightly more reluctant to share the news of their relationship at work. Lestrade, especially, had been a stumbling block for her: she looked up to the man immensely, and was always so worried about what he would think of her.

Molly wasn’t quite sure exactly _why_ Sally was so nervous to share the news with her boss, but she was determined to let him in on the secret before the department’s holiday banquet. Four years of going to that banquet by herself, and now that she was in a relationship, there was _no way_ she was showing up alone.

So, one “misplaced” voice message left on the wrong extension (Molly can be devious when she needs to be) and the cat was out of the bag. With no reason to hide their relationship anymore, she couldn’t see any reason not to invite him to her parents’ for Christmas dinner. Her mother loved having a crowd to cook for, her brother and sister would enjoy having one more person beside Uncle Harold to converse with, and he would have spent the day alone, otherwise.

It wasn’t until Sally very bluntly asked how Molly would feel if she had invited _her_ boss to Christmas dinner, and Molly was forced to picture cranky old Dr. Halverson critiquing her turkey carving technique, that she could finally understand how the invitation just might have been a miscalculation on her part.

Nevertheless, the day was going well. All right, so her mother had been a little forceful when insisting he have seconds at dinner, and her sister Louise had decided to throw herself on him the minute she heard he was single, and her Uncle Harold had turned out to have an odd and rather strong aversion to policemen. Beyond that, though, it was rather nice.

He’d even agreed to play a game of Scrabble after dinner.

***

Molly’s brother Stephen’s crow of triumph could be heard across the house. “Ha! Triple word score, triple _letter_ score, that nets me: 67 points! Yeah!”

His sister Louise eyed the board suspiciously. “‘Peevy’? That’s not a word!”

Stephen had snatched up the bag of letters, and was rummaging around to the bottom. “Of course it is! I used it last time!”

“What does it mean then?”

Stephen balked. “I don’t...I don’t know!”

Smiling triumphantly, Louise began reaching for the score pad across the table. “That’s because it’s not a word! If it’s not a word, you lose your turn...”

“It is a word!” Stephen snatched the pad of paper back from his sister. “I don’t have to know what it means for it to be a word!”

Uncle Harold downed his drink and broke into the argument. “Get the dictionary!” he demanded.

From his seat at the table, Lestrade groaned quietly. The siblings continued to squabble as Uncle Harold retrieved the dictionary himself and started looking up the word. “I know, I know,” he grumbled, answering Lestrade’s groan. “Grown adults and still fighting like children...”

“ _She’s_ the child,” Stephen insisted.

Louise, however, had taken note of Lestrade’s discomfort. “Greg? Are you feeling Ok?” She reached across the card table to pat his arm. The gesture only seemed to deepen his distress.

“Peevy!” Uncle Harold announced in a loud voice. “‘Alternate spelling of ‘peavey’, ‘a lumberman's lever that has a pivoting hooked arm and metal spike at one end’.”

“Ha! I _told you_ , Louise!”

“Shut _up_ , Stephen, Greg isn’t well...Greg, what’s wrong: can I get you anything, love?”

Lestrade, in fact, was not looking well at all. The hand Louise reached out to grasp was cold and clammy; his complexion had gone pale, and he was clutching his stomach in pain. All eyes in the room swivelled just in time to see his sheet-white face turn a rather alarming shade of green before he dashed from the room and into the hall toilet.

The loud bang of the door slamming was immediately followed by the unwelcome noise of a grown man vomiting up his Christmas dinner.

***

Molly stood outside the doorway, knocking softly and calling Lestrade’s name, all to no avail. She’d managed to usher the rest of the family back into the lounge. The only sound coming from the room was the quiet wailing of Mrs. Hooper. “I’ve never! I’ve _never_! It can’t have been my food, it just _can’t have_...”

The rest of the family sat in silence, waiting to see who would be stricken next.

Sally came up behind Molly and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I feel fine, don’t you?” she whispered.

Molly nodded. “No one else seems to be sick. He didn’t eat anything the rest of us didn’t, did he?”

Sally thought for a moment before shaking her head. “I don’t think so.”

They heard the toilet flush for the third time, and each woman winced sympathetically.

Worry knit across her brow, Molly turned from the door to face her girlfriend. “I just don’t see how it could be food poisoning if none of the rest of us are sick.”

Sally shrugged. “Maybe it’s a virus?”

“No.” Molly considered the idea and rejected it. “I don’t think so: I mean, it came on so fast! What was the last thing he ate?”

Each woman considered the evening’s meal. “We all ate the same things at dinner, ” Sally reminded her. “The last thing we had was the punch: everyone drank that as well.”

Molly nodded in resignation, and turned her attention back to the door of the loo. All was quiet inside, save for some gentle moaning. The door remained locked even as Molly cooed and cajoled.

Sally, however, was thoughtful. The tray of drinks Molly had served the punch from still sat on a table out there in the hallway. She moved closer to inspect the two still-full glasses, and something behind a pot of poinsettias caught her eye. It was a bottle of eyedrops.

“Oh, _shit_!”

The sharp expletive brought Molly’s head around. “What is it?”

Sally held up the bottle.

Molly just stared back at it. “Sally, I don’t think eyedrops are going to help him...”

“That’s not what I meant!” Sally lowered her voice to a whisper and dragged Molly back toward the kitchen, and out of the earshot of Lestrade the rest of the family. “I think this is what made him sick.”

Turning the bottle over in her hands, Molly stared back in confusion. “How?”

With enormous effort, Sally pushed down her irritation and the urge to roll her eyes. “In his drink! Have you ever heard of tetrahydrozoline poisoning?”

“Of course I have, but how would it have gotten in his drink?”

“How do you think?!”

There was a long beat while Molly’s brain worked around to Sally’s reasoning. Used to giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, her suspicions weren’t piqued as quickly as the detective’s. When she finally arrived at the same conclusion her lover had drawn, she gasped in shock.

“Sally, that’s poisoning! They would never...how could you accuse my family of trying to poison your boss?” She was close to tears, and nearly shouting.

“Hush, hush!” With soothing arms, Sally pushed them back into the kitchen and shut the door. “I don’t think whoever did it meant to poison him...”

“What do you mean? What do you call slipping a nervous system depressant into someone’s drink?” She held the bottle up in front of her as emphasis.

“They probably don’t know that’s what they did!” Sally gripped her girlfriend’s hand tightly to draw her attention. “Look, I worked a case a couple weeks ago: a poisoning in a bar. There’s this urban legend among servers and bartenders that putting a splash of eyedrops into someone’s drink will give them diarrhea.”

Confusion overtook Molly’s distress. “Diarrhea isn’t one of the symptoms of tetrahydrozoline poisoning! Lowered body temperature, lowered heart rate, stomach cramps, vomiting...but not diarrhea.”

“I know, Mols, but for some reason, that’s what people think it does.” She considered the list of symptoms Molly had rattled off, and frowned. “Do you think the boss will be OK?”

***

Lestrade was going to be OK. Molly eventually managed to convince him to let her into the toilet. Her first thought was that he needed to get to hospital. Her parents, however, lived a good thirty minute drive from the nearest facility in the best of weather, let alone the heavy fall of snow that fell throughout the day.

Lestrade himself refused to be moved. The vomiting had stopped, no doubt due to his having purged the rest of the drug from his stomach, and he had taken to lying curled up on his side on Mrs. Hooper’s fuzzy bathroom rug. He let Molly take his pulse and his temperature several times, and with his heartbeat holding steady at around 60 beats per minute and his temperature not even one degree below normal, he’d finally convinced the pathologist that this was the best place for him to be until he felt well enough to be driven home.

Meanwhile, Molly put off the rest of the family, letting them think that this was simply an unlucky case of food poisoning. She herself was not at all happy to know better.

“Someone in my family has poisoned your boss!” Molly wailed to Sally. They were huddled in the kitchen, occasionally casting nervous glances back toward the rest of the house.

Sally stroked her girlfriend’s shoulder quietly. “What are you going to do?”

“Perhaps if we can find out who did it, get them to confess and to apologize, he won’t want to press charges...”

Sally nodded, agreeing to the plan. “All right, we’ll have to do some detective work. When do you think they put the drops in?”

Molly thought back. “I served the drinks on a tray - let everyone pick their own. There’s no way they could have known which drink he would choose, so it had to have been after he selected one that the eye drops were put in it.”

Sally was already standing straighter, shifting subtly from her casual girlfriend stance into full-on cop mode. She grabbed a magnetic note pad covered in cats off the door of the refrigerator and started scribbling on it. “All right,” she said, “we’ll have to interview them one-by-one, find out who had the chance to be alone with his drink.”

Molly sniffled. “Won’t they get suspicious?”

Sally shrugged. “We’ll let them think we’re trying to figure out which food was tainted. Even if they do get suspicious, only the one person who poisoned him knows that he’s been poisoned: if someone is getting too suspicious, it’ll be a good sign they were the one who did it.”

Wiping the last tear from her cheek, Molly squared her shoulders. “How do you want to do this?”

“You bring them in here one at a time, and we’ll question them. See what shakes out.”

“I’ll bring in my mother first.”

***

**Molly** : Here Mum, have a seat...

 **Mrs. Hooper, sniffling** : Thank you, dear...oh, that poor man!

 **Molly** : Yes, Mum...

 **Mrs. Hooper** : Oh, I know it wasn’t my cooking! It can’t have been. It wasn’t my cooking, was it, Molly?

 **Molly** : No, Mum, it wasn’t...

 **Sally, glaring** : Molly!

 **Mrs. Hooper** : That turkey was fine, I know it was. No one else got ill! Ohh...it’s that Delia Smith! She said the guidelines for cooking turkey were over-cautious, that it would be much more juicy if I just cooked it to five degrees below what the directions said...

 **Sally** : Yes, the turkey was lovely, Mrs. Hooper. About the drinks...

 **Mrs. Hooper, interrupting** : It’s that Delia Smith! I’m returning all her books tomorrow, I’m telling you...

 **Sally** : Mrs. Hooper, it wasn’t the turkey...

 **Mrs. Hooper, talking over her** : I might keep the vegetarian collection, there’s some lovely sides in there, but nothing to do with meat, it’s all going back...

 **Sally, exchanging a look with Molly** : Thank you, Mrs. Hooper, you’ve been very helpful.

 **Molly** : Yes, Mum. Let’s go back to the lounge and get you some sherry.

 **Mrs. Hooper, mumbling** : It’s that Delia Smith...

 **Sally, sighing** : Your brother next?

***

**Stephen** : What’s with the secret meetings in the kitchen? There’s a _Casualty_ marathon on telly...

 **Molly** : We just want to figure out what made Greg ill.

 **Stephen** : You mean, other than Louise?

 **Molly, alarmed** : What?

 **Sally** : What do you mean by that?

 **Stephen, cautious** : Following him around like a lovesick puppy, I mean. She’s been drooling over him all night. Even now, she’s sitting there in the lounge fretting because he won’t let her ‘take care of him’. It’s made _me_ sick, anyway.

 **Molly, relieved** : Oh...

 **Stephen, suspicious** : Why, what did you think I meant?

 **Sally, speaking before Molly can answer** : So, after talking with your mum, we’ve determined it wasn’t the dinner that made him ill. When you were playing Scrabble, did you see him eat or drink anything strange, maybe?

 **Stephen** : Just that fruity cocktail Mols made. Wouldn’t be surprised if that did it. Those girly drinks always make me ill.

 **Sally** : Did you drink yours?

 **Stephen, defensive** : Well, yeah...

 **Sally** : How about during the game. Did anyone bring him anything beside the drink?

 **Stephen** : I don’t think so. Wasn’t there the whole time, though.

 **Molly** : Where did you go?

 **Stephen** : Well, Uncle Harold takes ages to play his words. He fancies himself some sort of Scrabble champion. I went to the loo and to grab a refill for my drink.

 **Molly, scoffing** : You always complain about my drinks, but who’s the first one up for refills?

 **Sally, annoyed** : Molly, please! Where did you get the refill from?

 **Stephen** : Well, from the tray: there were a couple full glasses on the tray in the hallway.

 **Sally** : How many?

 **Stephen** : Three.

 **Sally** : And what about when you got back to the game? How was Greg acting?

 **Stephen** : Fine, I guess. It was my turn, anyway, guess Uncle Harold managed to get on with it. Though, actually...yeah, something got his back up. He stormed past me when I went back into the lounge. Louise was all warmed up, too, and apologizing to Greg.

 **Molly** : About what?

 **Stephen** : Hell if I know. Uncle Harold had been shooting dirty looks at Greg all afternoon. Guess he finally said something.

 **Sally** : Thank you, Stephen. Would you send your Uncle Harold in?

***

**Uncle Harold** : What’s all this about, then? Some copper can’t hold his drink, and the rest of us get dragged in for interrogation?

 **Molly** : It’s not an interrogation, Uncle Harold! We just want to know what made Greg ill.

 **Uncle Harold** : Well, how should I know?

 **Sally** : Harold, you had an argument with Greg during the Scrabble game?

 **Uncle Harold, bristling** : What of it?

 **Molly** : Well, it seems like you weren’t happy with Greg all day. Did he do something to offend you?

 **Uncle Harold** : Don’t like coppers, is all.

 **Sally** : You don’t seem to have a problem with me.

 **Uncle Harold** : Well, you’re not the same as him, are you?

 **Sally, defensive** : What do you mean by that?

 **Uncle Harold** : Throwin’ his weight around, harassing innocent people...

 **Molly** : What?

 **Uncle Harold** : Never been in trouble a day in my life! Model student, I was...

 **Sally** : Harold, what are you talking about?

 **Uncle Harold** : It was just a harmless prank! Everyone does one when they’re trying to get into the club.

 **Molly** : Is this about you getting done for stealing that pub sign when you were at uni?

 **Uncle Harold** : Never been in trouble a day in my life before that. Just a harmless prank!

 **Sally** : Harold, can we ask you one more question?

 **Uncle Harold** : I suppose you’re going to anyway.

 **Sally** : Did you see Greg pick out his drink?

 **Uncle Harold** : I don’t think so. No...he came in with it.

 **Molly** : Into the lounge?

 **Uncle Harold** : Yes.

 **Molly, mumbling** : That’s right, he picked it up in the hallway...

 **Sally** : Did he leave his drink unattended at any point?

 **Uncle Harold** : I don’t know! What are you implying?

 **Sally** : Nothing at all. That’s all the questions we have.

 **Molly** : Thank you, Uncle Harold. Will you send Louise in?

***

**Louise** : Is he going to be OK?

 **Molly** : Yes, Louise, he’s going to be fine.

 **Sally, sternly** : Luckily, yes, but it could very easily have been very serious.

 **Louise, sniffling** : I just wish he’d let me take care of him! I made him some mint tea, but he won’t open the door...

 **Molly** : It’s best that he just rest...

 **Sally** : You made him mint tea? Did you make him anything else?

 **Louise** : What? I don’t know what you mean...

 **Sally** : Did you make him a drink, perhaps?

 **Louise** : Molly made the drinks...

 **Sally** : You didn’t _help_ him with his drink at all?

 **Molly** : Sally...

 **Louise** : What? What are you asking me?

 **Sally** : Greg’s drink: did he pick it out himself?

 **Louise** : Yes, he did. I offered to make him something stronger, more manly, but he said that the punch would be fine. Even brought me a glass!

 **Molly** : He brought you a glass?

 **Louise** : Yes, he did! Stephen kept teasing me, telling me I’m barking up the wrong tree, but that shut him up, when Lestrade brought me a drink without me even asking. Even if he did bring me the wrong one...

 **Sally** : The wrong one?

 **Louise** : The ballet slipper is always mine.

***

Sally wasn’t sure just what exactly was going on when Molly dismissed her sister from the kitchen and stormed off down the hallway. She just followed after her, doing her best to keep up.

With Louise safely occupied in the kitchen, Lestrade had finally left his stronghold in the bathroom. Mrs. Hooper had offered him her bedroom, with a wastepaper basket next to the bed should he feel the need to vomit again.

Molly stormed right in, Sally close behind her. Molly locked the door, and turned to the huddled figure groaning on the bed.

“You tried to poison my sister!”

“What?” Sally was aghast. “Mols, you’re crazy!”

Lestrade just groaned.

Molly wasn’t going to let him off that easy, though. “What do you have to say for yourself? What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking,” he rasped, “that I’d finally get a little peace and quiet.”

Sally stared in disbelief. “What, so she’s right? You tried to poison Louise?”

“Not poison!” he insisted, trying to sit up but falling back against the covers with another pang of stomach cramps. “It was just supposed to cause a little diarrhea.”

Realization dawned on Sally’s face. “The poisoning case in the bar. You were supposed to work that with me, but you got called away on a homicide.”

“A little bit of eye drops in a drink is supposed to give a person the runs...I thought a drop or two would just get the girl off my back for an hour or so...”

Sally now joined Molly’s side, looking just as angry. “If you had actually worked that case with me, you would have known that eye drops do _not_ cause diarrhea, but a host of other extremely unpleasant symptoms. The victim in that case spent 6 days in hospital, two of them with breathing assistance.”

If possible, Lestrade’s pale face turned whiter. “I didn’t know! I just used two drops...” He fell back against the pillows with a groan.

The anger started to fade from Molly’s stance. “It’s a good thing, too. My poor sister...”

“But how did _I_ end up with _her_ drink.”

Molly was on the verge of giggling now. “Because she switched the glasses.”

Sally turned to her quizzically. “But why? How could she have known what he did to the drinks?”

Now Molly actually laughed. “She didn’t! It was the ballet slipper.”

Lestrade was not following. “The what?”

“The little charms you hang off the handle of the cups to tell them apart. They’re from The Nutcracker, which my sister used to dance every year when she was a girl. That’s why she always gets the ballet slipper. When you gave her the Rat King, she must have switched it for the slipper when you weren’t looking.”

Sally was stuck between mortification and amusement, but Molly’s laugh was infectious; she couldn’t help but smile. “Unbelievable...”

Lestrade, for his answer, just groaned louder.

“Well,” Sally began, “what are we going to do about him? Attempted poisoning is a crime...” There was serious worry in her voice as she spoke. She respected her boss, and would do anything to protect him, but she was a cop first; she couldn’t just ignore what he’d done.

Molly reached out to soothe her. “I think he’s been punished enough, actually: no need to take this any further.”

Sally sighed in relief. “I’ll drive him home, once he’s up to it. As for being punished _enough_ : well, there’s some work down at the station I wouldn’t mind handing off to the boss for a while...”

The solution was more than adequate for Molly. She took Sally’s hand and started leading her out of the bedroom. “We’ll leave him to contemplate his fate for now. In the meantime, I believe we still have dessert to serve.”

Sally waggled her eyebrows in response. “Do we now?”

Molly laughed. “We do! But first, there _is_ this pie to eat...”


End file.
